


Life, Love, and Light Bulbs

by cxr



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen, National University of Singapore, Singapore, University Scholars Programme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cxr/pseuds/cxr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what Hui Yee learns in the University Scholars Programme (USP): the value of life, the nature of love, and just how many USP students it takes to change a light bulb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life, Love, and Light Bulbs

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mirror Mirror: A USP Fairy Tale](https://archiveofourown.org/works/847305) by [cxr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cxr/pseuds/cxr). 



> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, which does not represent any official view of USP or NUS.

Open house sells a story of journey and self-discovery in a leading global university centred in Asia.

The story Hui Yee once believed goes like this:

*

Once upon a time, when Hui Yee was in junior college, or JC, she and her classmates pledged fealty to Her Royal Highness the Queen of the Dominion, more prosaically known as their class representative. Though the land had been cursed by the stack of ever-growing prelim practice papers, the plebes of the Dominion constantly presented gifts to their ruler to demonstrate the extent of their loyalty. Hui Yee herself earned a Communal Seal of Approval for her contributions to the commissioned list of Royal Adjectives Befitting the Queen, of which special mention was given for the inclusion of "whiny", "melodramatic", and "histrionic". 

While the only spas they had available were Science Practical Assessments, they nevertheless fantasised ways to recharge the senses. (Heat organic compounds over heated flame and inhale deeply; enjoy the sweet taste of the excess acidified KMnO4.)  


And then Hui Yee had heard about USP, hoped to once again experience the exhilaration of those flights of fancy, and made a strong enough case about it in the interview to get in.

*

Reality and expectation don't match. Hui Yee supposes that it's her own fault, for spending an unhealthy proportion of her pre-university break reading fanfiction on the internet.

"Dumbledore can knit," Hui Yee says, unthinking, at one conversation with her orientation group, when she would have been better served by knowing the antics of the annoying orange or what exactly the fox says.

Since Hui Yee has next to nothing for them, it's not unreasonable to receive next to nothing. They greet each other in the corridors-- for those who deign to acknowledge her existence, that is-- and not much else.

Perhaps Hui Yee should have accepted that all fairy tales must come to an end. She's been lucky enough to experience such a connection once.

At the end of her first year, Hui Yee receives an email "seeking her views about USP". She writes about the confident, articulate student representatives she'd seen at open house. She then looks at herself and wonders if she should ask for her metaphorical money back. Because she's naïve enough to confess something less than glowing, one of the staff from corporate communications ask her for a chat.

There are claims from USP students that Hui Yee's learnt to take with a pinch of salt, such as anything with the word 'awesome' and 'totally changed the way I thought'. Yes, she finds the modules educational, but expanding one's mental framework to accommodate new opinions is not something deserving of so much fanfare in Hui Yee's opinion.

But the nice things people say about the admin staff in USP, Hui Yee has reason to believe. Even though she's essentially another administrative burden, they remember her name and smile at her when they see her in the corridors. In return for being treated like a human, therefore, Hui Yee doesn't delete the invitation. She ends up talking to Stephanie, who Hui Yee remembers by her curly hair.

Hui Yee can't put her finger on what bothers her exactly about those informal conversations she's had. She recalls snatches of “oh my god, I can't stand how bimbotic some people are”, combined with one of the guys performing a cruelly accurate falsetto rendition of some of the girls who'd shamelessly cut into his queue. But complaining amongst friends is normal, isn't it?

Then a girl had mentioned how fascinating she was finding _Outliers._ Hui Yee was in the midst of phrasing a question about the trade-off between breadth and depth, only to find that the others had rushed in to gush about the author's other books:  _The Tipping Point_ and _Blink!._ But it's good that these people are enriching their minds with knowledge, that they share some reading in common, isn't it?

Perhaps it's just that Hui Yee is so bad at entering the conversation, that she feels that ideas are flashing like electricity between them while she's wrapped up in what must be some kind of insulating layer.

"Just because I don't sit in Chatterbox telling everyone what I think doesn't mean I don't have opinions, right?" Hui Yee's been forcing the words out against her usual reticence out of the feeling that it'll genuinely be appreciated. But at the end of it all, her arms are crossing of their own accord, bracing her against the rebuttal she's sure will come.

"You're absolutely right," says Stephanie, to Hui Yee's surprise. "It's why we hope people like you will come forward as well."

That's why, on the morning of the NUS open house, Hui Yee ends up having an extremely early breakfast. The blurry irritation from insufficient sleep has been compounded by the flashing shadows of the big-S fan, and Hui Yee conveys her displeasure quite audibly.

"All the student ambassadors get called down--or conscripted, should I say-- during open house," Hui Yee explains. Over the past few days, after all, there has been the hoisting of faculty banners with multiracial smiling faces, the erection of panels with 'NUS' in eye-catching orange and blue, and makeshift white tents with fluttering plastic appearing across the Town Plaza. To Hui Yee, this is the hour when the invaders are at the threshold, the calm before the storm of people.

*

"You make it sound as if you were drafted into this," says Joseph. "Isn't this something you signed up for?"

"I was once young and idealistic," says Hui Yee. "You'll understand when you're older."

"I'm older than you." Joseph bristles. Hui Yee's known Joseph since JC, when his class, as Hui Yee's senior class, had played the angel-mortal letter-writing game with their juniors.

"What did you say, junior?" says Hui Yee, because unlike Joseph, she didn't have to serve two years of national service before matriculating. She cups a hand to her ear. "You'll have to speak up, us seniors don't hear as well as you young people."

"Don't cry, ok?" says Hui Yee, as Joseph narrows his eyes at her. "Come by the booth later-- I'll give you two freebies."

It should disturb her more, Hui Yee thinks, that it's understood that she's referring to Chee Boon and Joseph as a unit.

*

Somewhat like in the army, all the student helpers go through some basic training in the USP marketing framework of curriculum, community, and opportunities, which they are then expected to contextualise with their personal experiences. Somewhat unlike the army, however, the troops get to choose whether to go to the front line as a guide or to stay back and hold the fort-- that is, the information booth at the sports hall.

Ideally, a tour goes as follows: the visitors are entranced by the carpet grass, frangipani trees, and rolling landscapes of the new University Town extension; the guide tells heartfelt stories about spirited intellectual discussions late into the night and awesome overseas adventures; the right people for USP sign up, and everyone lives happily ever after.

In practice, Hui Yee knows all too well the limits of her own articulacy. Try as she might, her clumsy words do no justice to the sheer incandescence of insight or the fierce glow of pride from a measured but genuine compliment. Besides, her heart lacks the magic that transforms running with a broom clipped between the knees into Quidditch.

Hui Yee could argue that many people in the residential college must believe in magic, though. Obviously that's how overflowing water trays in the pantry empty themselves, how lint removes itself from clogged sinks, and how hair removes itself from choked drainage covers that leave the cubicles flooded with water.

Fortunately for everyone involved, there is no lack of eloquence and enthusiasm amongst Hui Yee's colleagues, and so she gets her preferred job of fielding questions at the booth. There's a certain satisfaction at having addressed a persistent doubt, and Hui Yee does relish the challenge of pitting USP against some other residential programme or prestigious university. For the most part, though, introducing USP is quite a lot like eating dining hall food: the first time, it's fun and quite the learning experience; the hundredth time, the throat threatens to seize up when confronted with the same experience yet again.

Hui Yee contemplates this as she stares at the standard student helper lunch of a braised chicken wing and soggy vegetables. Other than the mutual grunts of greeting, the dining hall is nearly silent; there's only the rustle of the large red plastic bag and the snap of a rubber band as people open their packed lunch. The silence is probably for the best, since Hui Yee's head, not to mention her throat, hurts from the non-stop buzz of hundreds of people struggling to be heard above each other.

When she returns to the sports hall, Hui Yee heads straight for the throat soothers. There's a storage space behind the stands, and the sweets are right behind the image of the professor and students engaged in conversation on the steps of the amphitheatre and the USP sign in brushed aluminium. Hui Yee gets the invites to the photo-shoot, but she's turned them down ever since she realized that it would be much more preferable to watch the models engage in perspiration from the air-conditioned comfort of the nearby reading room. After poking around the flyers, info cards, and other marketing collaterals, she takes a couple of Strepsils and prepares to face the afternoon crowd.

"Hi, what is USP about?" calls a familiar, falsely innocent voice when she's in front of the booth. "Can you tell me more?"

"I'll tell the USP admin to remove you from the program," Hui Yee tells Joseph, because that's the most popular and most irritating question, with "excuse me, is this the scholarships booth?" coming a close second on both counts. The word 'scholar' was meant to connote learnedness and erudition, but since this is Singapore, most people assume it refers to free money.

"So, where are the freebies?" says Chee Boon from next to Joseph, and it's a sign of Hui Yee's horrible taste in men that she finds even this conversation-opener a little heart-stopping.

Even Hui Yee can't make an argument for Chee Boon's attractiveness, at least not in the conventional sense; Chee Boon has all the stunning skin tone and sculpted musculature one would expect from someone who gets his annual physical exercise balancing his awards at the prize-giving ceremony. But sometimes, when she catches a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye, the right edges sharpen, and Hui Yee finds herself recalling platonic solids, symmetry, and the realization of just what beauty mathematicians see in geometry.

Then again, Hui Yee thinks that convention has never quite applied to her interactions with Chee Boon and Joseph. If you believe clichéd romances, Hui Yee should have swooned and fell the first time she saw Chee Boon, but her early memories of Chee Boon in the residential college mainly involve awkward glances. They’d both had vague suspicions that they knew the other person from their JC Chinese orchestra, but those suspicions hadn't been confirmed until Joseph had introduced them.

At that first conversation, they'd ended up talking about Chee Boon's and Joseph's weight. Hui Yee would have thought it rather mean-spirited, but apparently it reminds them of the good old days when the two of them were classmates, and Hui Yee won't deny that she finds the jokes funny.

"We used to help lift him up when he was training for pull-ups." Chee Boon tells her, after Hui Yee passes them the USP foldable water bottle that has made their booth one of the most popular amongst the NUS staff and student helpers. "We ended up getting more practice than him."

"You mean the pull-up bar wasn't naturally attracted to him?" says Hui Yee, because if you believed all Chee Boon had said, Joseph's gravitational field used to change the orbit of stars.

Joseph probably gets the last laugh when he reveals that they still call Chee Boon a delta function: a tall, thin spike; while Joseph's transformation during national service had been one that made him a potential poster boy for slimming centres islandwide, Chee Boon had proved to be stubbornly resistant to the reverse transformation.

After a while, Joseph gets drawn towards the NUS Overseas College booth, with its backdrop of the Shanghai nightscape, the lights of the Pearl of the Orient glittering on the Huangpu River.

"The trouble is that everyone asks the same questions year in, year out," Hui Yee says plaintively to Chee Boon. "Why does no one ever ask, I don't know-- 'how many USP students does it take to change a light bulb?'"

"Just one." Chee Boon smirks, pointing in the direction of Joseph, who's from Engineering.

"Call yourself a science student," Hui Yee says, shaking her head in mock disappointment.

"I could post about it on Facebook," Chee Boon returns, because he's no experimentalist. Hui Yee is no better: where she comes from, extended calculations are considered 'getting one's hands dirty'.

"No, wait, I know!" says Hui Yee. "Actually, we do know what the answer is: none. The admin fixes it, the boss decides that the students letting the projector light bulb blow out is the last straw, and we are all banned from using the rooms outside teaching hours."

That gets a rare laugh out of Chee Boon, a deep, full-throated sound that settles in the base of her gut, warm.

The hours pass more easily, after that. Hui Yee thinks that’s probably how soldiers endure the endless skirmishes amidst the howls and roars of war: by thinking of someone worth returning for.

*

When the last of the visitors leave, the lounge ceases to be a glass enclosure for specimens of _Homo sapiens usp_ and reverts to its original role as a place of relaxation. Which is why Hui Yee is there to read the newspapers and Chee Boon is there to practice on his _erhu_. Totally random and independent events, these.

When Hui Yee tells people that she used to play the _guzheng_ for the Chinese orchestra of a certain JC, people tend to assume that Hui Yee's "Chinese must be very good". Indeed, that was what Hui Yee's father had hoped, the futility of which he acknowledges every time Hui Yee speaks the language.

Hui Yee would probably place her learning of Jay Chou songs at the pinnacle of her linguistic achievements. To understand how useless this is, consider the song playing through Hui Yee's head. It's one of Jay Chou's Chinese-style _zhongguofeng_ songs, set in the ancient China of martial-arts fantasy _wuxia_ novels. Often, in these stories, the martial arts master often sees past the worldly struggles for power and leaves the trappings of society behind to retire to the countryside with his beloved, like cranes roaming amidst the drifting clouds. Accordingly, amidst the interwoven strains of _guzheng_ and piano, the lyrics call forth a thatched hut with the branches casting slanting shadows on the paper windows, with the couple sipping tea while facing each other.

“Stories, meet real life,” Hui Yee mutters, taking in the half-completed buckyball model, the huge box that used to contain Redondo wafers but now probably contains mould and decay, and the newspapers strewn across the room.

But there's the _erhu_ music courtesy of Chee Boon, and Hui Yee supposes of the fine sounds, sights, and smells she'd been expecting, one out of three isn't all that bad. As she places the newspapers across him on the table, she sneaks a look at his score. The piece is titled _Er Quan Ying Yue_ \-- the moon reflected on the pool-- but it's nothing like watching the light shimmering off the algae-green ponds of the Botanic Gardens on a warm, lazy afternoon; it's as if the chill of the music has bleached the world white, leaving the pale moon of the wintry sky reflected in the pool ringed by snow-capped mountains.

When Chee Boon puts his bow down for a break, she learns that the piece was composed by a blind musician who had to ply his trade by the roadside. Ordinarily, that would not impress Hui Yee, who tends to associate buskers with amateurs who try to wring out every last drop of cheap sentimentality the plaintive human cry of the _erhu_ can provide. But this piece has spirit, somehow, thinks Hui Yee as Chee Boon begins anew. Hui Yee imagines the strains of the composer's _erhu_ amidst the swirl of the snow in the sparsely populated streets: neither contesting nor bemoaning the harsh winter, but blending with it, with the sense that every hardship can be similarly endured.

They're from USP, so beyond music, they naturally end up talking about their USP modules. Chee Boon's Paper 3 for the writing module he's taking is on the problematic representation of native peoples in a computer game. He talks about the concept of a boundary object he's using as an academic lens, but that mostly reminds Hui Yee of the closure arguments using epsilon-balls from her complex analysis class, which suggests to her that her skill sets do not extend far enough for a meaningful conversation in this area.

As mentioned, eloquent praise isn't one of Hui Yee's strengths, so she has very little to say about the USP classes she has taken. Instead, she redistributes common-sense titbits of information: prepare to bankrupt your General account for Politics of Heritage, or any module with an overseas field trip, or Evolution.

"If you ever take that module and are looking for a sensational topic," Hui Yee adds, because that module's final project involves research on the evolutionary origin of some phenomenon. "You should know that people have already covered armpit hair, boobs, and masturbation."

Their status as science students has evidently been well-earned, because this leads them into tracking the myriad of macromolecular bonds that have been formed or dissolved between the members of their JC Chinese orchestra. Chee Boon also takes the chance to hawk tickets of their next concert; Hui Yee promises to attend if the final theme is her kind of music, because she doesn't write blank cheques, not for anyone.

Chee Boon then asks what "her kind of music is". Years of family gatherings have conditioned Hui Yee to treat that as a loaded question. What inevitably follows is a request to play part of said piece, during which Hui Yee inflicts wince-inducing trips upon the listeners. In order to buy time, she makes him answer his own question. He obliges, naming _Er Quan Ying Yue_ , and two other pieces, all gruelling tests of virtuosity. Hui Yee thinks that he relishes the challenge of lightning-quick dexterity or coaxing a rolling vibrato that recalls the rumble of distant thunder.

In recent years, Hui Yee's answer to her family has been something along the lines of _Liuyang River_ , a relatively easy piece about the hopes and dreams of the village folk. But it's not as if Chee Boon can make her play now, thinks Hui Yee, as she tells him the truth.

“ _Han Ya Xi Shui,_ ” says Hui Yee. Translated literally, the title means jackdaws frolicking in water. However, the charming duplicity of the Chinese language often ensures that the literal translation is not the only one, as is the case here. Hui Yee gives Chee Boon a highly condensed version of the story: in the early days of the Qing dynasty, many courtiers from the preceding Ming dynasty were retained in their roles to facilitate the dynastic transition, but spies and rigid controls were in place to suppress any potential rebellion.

"These guys got very depressed about having to be politically correct all the time or risk getting the chop," says Hui Yee. Since her Chinese teachers aren't around to have an apoplexy, she adds, “In a sense, you could translate the title as 'emo loners sucking thumb'."

Hui Yee admits to Chee Boon that she thinks that that translation overthinks the issue. Personally, she just thinks there's something adorable about the duck-like jackdaws forming rings in the water with their splashes, paddling vigorously against the surge of the current. Hui Yee is not the kind to wax lyrical about the soul of the piece, but the failure of her fingers to convey her intent bites at her whenever she catches the wrong string while attempting the thumb-middle finger tremolo.

But there's something in the cadence of Chee Boon's voice as he mentions how the title of _Er Quan Ying Yue_ also hides a similarly convoluted story-- the reassurance of genuinely being listened to-- that makes Hui Yee think that perhaps she wouldn't mind playing for him, because she has the feeling that he would listen to what's beyond the slips.

It's not like she can retire to the countryside and watch birds frolic, thinks Hui Yee as she returns to her room, but perhaps somewhere in the imagination, beyond the accumulated defeats of the day, there is something that she can hope to have for her own.

***

Hui Yee can't help but look when she hears the flapping of a bird's wings as it launches into flight, can't help but be fascinated by their ability to defy gravity's leaden pull, can't help but envy them a little for having what she doesn't. It's the same mix of amazement and disappointment she feels when she begs Joseph to explain her notes to her and finally gets what’s going on, two hours later. It's a relief to finally understand what's going on, but this is also a testament to their relative academic competencies, given that Joseph is technically her junior and from a different course to boot.

They head for dinner, where Hui Yee defaults to her usual seat in the dining hall, the row closest to the padded wall and its dubious acoustic-improving qualities. She likes that seat: it's close enough to the fan to remain cool and yet not so close that the fan blows her hair all over her face. It's also far enough to the side that they can hear themselves talk, but not so near the side door that they end up getting guilted into pushing the door open for people who can't be bothered to walk the extra ten meters to use the main door. As it turns out, though, that seat is poorly guarded against a side attack.

"Hui Hui!" calls Du Ling, barrelling into Hui Yee's shoulder. She's close enough that Hui Yee can smell the cotton of her shirt, a vague hint of chrysanthemum, and the phantom scent of the laundry fluid Du Ling's boarding school used in the past.

"Ling Ling," Hui Yee calls back, exaggerated but not entirely mocking. She's not one for pet names in general, but Du Ling somehow gained permission in the midst of their secondary school days.

Du Ling's tugging at Hui Yee's elbow when Joseph sets his tray down. He raises an eyebrow in surprise, because Hui Yee is not generally a tactile person. The last time Joseph and her had engaged in physical contact was probably when he stepped on her foot that day in the crowded shuttle bus.

In response, Hui Yee levels him a look that says 'try this on me, and I'll cut you', as Du Ling disentangles herself. Hui Yee's mind has its own exception handling routine for Du Ling, but it sees no necessity to define a similar pathway for Joseph.

"You might have seen each other in JC," Hui Yee points to Joseph. "He was from my senior class."

"That explains why you look so familiar," Joseph remarks.

"Hmm, there's something else..." Du Ling's brow furrows slightly before her eyes light up in recognition. "Oh right, I often hear you playing the piano," she says. "You play very well."

Hui Yee finds herself wishing that she could say something like that to Chee Boon as smoothly, instead of possessing communication skills best suited to the point-and-grunt requirements of the Stone Age. But well, what does one mean by well, exactly? Chee Boon's no virtuoso like Guo Gan, but he's also way beyond the cat-strangling stage. If Hui Yee had to describe it, she'd say that his playing makes her both remember and forget. In those moments, she relives the electric pull of music, and momentarily puts aside the fear that what they have won't last, because good things rarely do.

*

Chee Boon and Joseph have known each other for roughly five thousand years, so Joseph's attendance at Chee Boon's Chinese orchestra concert is no surprise. Hui Yee's honest enough with herself to know that believing that she attended purely out of friendship is like believing that coffeeshop _chee-ko-peks_ buy beer from the promoters in skimpy shorts purely out of an appreciation for alcohol.

“Ooh, _Howl's Moving Castle_ ,” Hui Yee says to Du Ling, without looking up from the programme booklet. The movie had been popular among her classmates, so the Miyazaki film scores are an added bonus. Hui Yee should wonder why Du Ling is there in the first place, given that Du Ling and Chee Boon don't know each other well, but her attention is drawn by the rising curtain.

The buzz in the audience crescendos. Friends call "we'll always support you!" from their seats and family members snap pictures with their smartphones. All Hui Yee does is to applaud more vigorously than normal. Her inability to provide raucous support has never bothered her, although the image of Chee Boon, gaze fixed on his score, gives her pause. She realizes she doesn't know if he feels encouraged or annoyed by the whistles of strangers, she doesn't know if his parents come to his performances, if he'd be annoyed if they were to 'rest their eyes' the way Hui Yee's father claimed he was doing during her performance, but she wants to. It's a weird, jittery feeling, as if she'd channelled the nervousness of the performers up to the first downstroke of the conductor's baton.

The first piece is from a movie Hui Yee only knows from the programme; it's been about a young witch gaining independence, set against the projected movie still of the brilliant blue ocean, soaring seagulls with wingtips just a shade of blue darker than the sky, and brick houses dotting the low hills in the background.

Hui Yee has never been the kind to dutifully sit and listen. She'd paid more attention to the twitching nose hairs of her _guzheng_ instructor than to his talk about how every instrument carried the voice of its player. But perhaps he'd had a point after all: for an instant, the swell of the strings triggers a sense memory of Chee Boon's calm playing. In that moment, instead of wondering if the flying witch followed civil aviation signals, she feels a current of warmth: something steady, something sure, that makes Hui Yee feel like the seagulls rising on the thermals.

*

Hui Yee only realizes what she should have noticed at the concert the next day. She's at breakfast at the ungodly hour of 7am, only because of a lecture at 8am. The mornings are peaceful in their own way, though. No one sees if she smiles into her coffee for no particular reason, which is why it's a bit of a shock when Chee Boon appears.

"So early?" Hui Yee asks, her stomach clenching involuntarily.

Chee Boon mutters something about it being quieter in the mornings, but he looks far too awkward for that to be his main purpose. They cycle through various mundane topics, but there seems to be an undercurrent. It seems to drive the tempo of Hui Yee's pulse forward, towards one tantalising answer to the question of what Chee Boon would want a quiet moment for.

"By the way," Chee Boon says, too casually. "Does...is Du Ling attached?"

"You're interested in her?" asks Hui Yee, surprised by both the question and the flash of burning jealousy in her chest. She'd always thought Chee Boon treated Du Ling...the way Joseph treats her actually, with a certain congenial tolerance in exchange for tolerable company.

“No!” Chee Boon says, too quick to be false. “Joseph bought two tickets from me, and I saw Du Ling with you guys, so I was just curious.”

Hui Yee will not admit to spluttering "Oh my god, Du Ling and Joseph were on a date?", because that would be undignified.

"I just asked Joseph to help me get the ticket," Du Ling insists, later, but the damage is done.

In hindsight, Hui Yee's certain that Du Ling and Joseph brushed knees and hands in the darkness of the performance hall too many times to be coincidental. There'd probably been a love story unfolding as they'd walked across the bridge back to the University Town campus, following the curve of the bridge snaking across the expressway, the dull roar against the flash of the headlights as cars coursed past, and lit up by the fluorescent lights of the buildings against the night. A love story with its own music video to boot, considering the call-and response of their conversation, the way Du Ling's authentically accented lilt had blended with Joseph's measured tones.

Hui Yee had been imagining music in her mind, but it'd been the keening call of the _erhu_ in her memory. She'd also been thinking idly of couples she'd seen on the bridge, showing off their linked arms like some kind of trophy. To Hui Yee's surprise, though, she hadn't cared much about doing the same, instead thinking about the last time she and Chee Boon had walked that bridge.

“I know it must be a very difficult time for you,” Hui Yee had said solemnly, after Chee Boon told her that Joseph now had a CAP score that was 0.05 higher than this. She'd handed him a tissue. “Feel free to cry it all out.”

Chee Boon had snorted with laughter, a spontaneous gesture that somehow warmed Hui Yee than any romantic ballad she'd ever heard.

*

During the Valentine's Day period, the residential college is taken over by the Buaya Buayee secret-pal game. Hui Yee considers herself an active spectator at the event, being amused by the outpouring of soppiness: the shrines erected by the male 'buaya's for their 'buayees', complete with rhyming couplets about "longing to see you/ on bus D2"; people's heads photoshopped onto bodybuilders or sparkly vampires appearing all over the college; and perhaps most memorably, a poster declaring someone "the Dodo to my Myojo", complete with a picture of the rounded dome of his head.

In accordance with the Pareto principle, the majority of these grand gestures correspond to a relatively small subset of people. Hui Yee resides safely in the complement of that set, until she and Chee Boon decide to get involved on behalf of Joseph and Du Ling.

"What about this?" Hui Yee asks at one such plotting session, angling the screen so Chee Boon could see the YouTube video: a scene with the pompous character swanning around in his dressing gown made of flowery silk, singing "Amore, amore!”

"Joseph's more of the ' _O sole mio_ ' type," Chee Boon replies, amused.

"True, you should write his part. I'll stick to describing the flawless marble of Joseph's muscular chest," volunteers Hui Yee, with the enthusiasm of one who reads far too much crack fiction on the internet.

The problem is that Hui Yee's primitive system is as susceptible to stimulus-response feedbacks as any other. Just as a dog salivates uncontrollably in the face of a warm meal, Hui Yee's heart jolts involuntarily when she receives a draft saying "I love you as much as you love me", despite knowing that it isn't meant for her and not even written from Chee Boon's point of view.

It's probably why Hui Yee puts in far more effort than she should into this joke. Hui Yee digs deep amongst her memories of Du Ling: her leaning against Hui Yee's shoulder on the bus till her hair tickles Hui Yee's neck; the conversations that had went from _wuxia_ novels to paradoxical philosophies about ‘studying the form to leave form’, the ridiculous ditty about being a tiny tiny bird she'd sung just to annoy Hui Yee. At the end of it all, they slot the letters written by 'Du Ling' and 'Joseph' into Joseph's and Du Ling's mailboxes, respectively.

*

The next morning, Hui Yee is greeted by a very loud and insistent knocking.

"Not in!" Hui Yee calls, grinning, because she has a good idea of who it is.

"You come out right now!" demands Du Ling, thrusting the letters in Hui Yee’s face the moment the door opens.

" 'Were that we could flutter in a shared orbit as butterflies, or spread our wings together like lovebirds, or, better still, to have each other for all of our human lifetimes?'" says Hui Yee, reading off the letter written by ‘Du Ling’. "Wow, how loving you two are!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" snaps Du Ling, although without much heat. "This nonsense has you written all over it!"

"Me?" says Hui Yee, turning to ‘Joseph’’s letter. "How could I hope to emulate the depths of Joseph's affection? How does he put it? 'I would not want to be a bird or a butterfly-- it would give me too short a time with you.' "

Hui Yee's face heats slightly at the thought that Chee Boon had written those, but Du Ling is too annoyed to notice.

"So Joseph was right," Du Ling says. "You must have corrupted Chee Boon somehow."

Hui Yee laughs, imagining Joseph's shoulders convulsing with his silent laughter. He'd probably thrown his hands up after that, and told Du Ling "'I fail to understand what that whole exchange set out to achieve".

*

Apparently, Hui Yee's brain is a flawed model, because it thinks that not seeing Chee Boon for a week while they both return home for the mid-term break is equivalent to not seeing him for infinity. Worse still, her brain goes on to decide that it is therefore appropriate to tell him how she feels. Via Facebook.

Or perhaps all that letter-faking made typing declarations of love part of her muscle memory.

So when she sits in front of her laptop, yellow from the glow of the room light, and actually types "I love you", it feels like second nature.

Hui Yee has no words to describe how unspeakably pathetic that is. Evidently, Chee Boon and her are on the same page, since he doesn't say anything either.

If gods do exist, Hui Yee is pretty sure they're laughing at her. Since Hui Yee and Chee Boon stay on the same floor, there were many occasions when a conversation that began before they entered the lift continued in the corridor bridging the two wings of each floor. Hui Yee doesn't rhapsodize about the sublime beauty of a sunset, but there'd been one conversation when she'd been suddenly aware of her surroundings, of the sun blazing orange as it set into the grey mist shrouding the port containers and the freight ships, and had wished that the moment would never end. Now, this wish is granted whenever she waits for the same lift as Chee Boon, since the awkwardness seems to last for an eternity.

*

Hui Yee's better off telling the story of Joseph and Du Ling, the kind that follows the rules of girl not being an idiot and saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. As a bonus, Hui Yee gets to leave out all the awkward bits. Like now, when Hui Yee's waiting for her parents in the lounge and Joseph appears, marking the first time they've been in close proximity since he and Du Ling got together.

Joseph's at the piano, playing bits and pieces of his repertoire, because his rule is that 'Men do not talk about feelings'. In general, it's a rule that Hui Yee's quite happy to follow, because the relationship Talks she'd experienced-- courtesy of her father-- could have been delivered by a math textbook: observe that marriage is a desirable property, the details are left as an exercise. But Hui Yee feels obligated, somehow. It's stupid, really, because Du Ling had lots of other PRC friends long before Hui Yee and she had met. And, objectively speaking, Hui Yee probably doesn't rank high on Du Ling's list of priorities, especially now that there's Joseph. Yet, somehow, Hui Yee feels that Du Ling was hers first.

It doesn't help that the last time Hui Yee had felt such an urge to say something, everything had gone to shambles. However, in the end, her reluctance is overpowered by the tension of the unresolved cadences in Joseph's music, made worse by how Hui Yee has more or less memorized his repertoire through repeated exposure.

"How did you know?" says Joseph after Hui Yee asks if he'd been waiting for Du Ling, hastily checking his reflection in the varnished surface of the piano.

"An engineer wearing a button-down shirt without a good reason?" laughs Hui Yee, before assuming a mock-serious look. "So, is this the part where I tell you not to break her heart or I'll break your legs?"

Joseph spent the past two years in the army charging up hills with a heavy signalling pack on his back. In contrast, Hui Yee considers carrying a laundry basket as the crowning physical achievement of her week. "You can ask Chee Boon to try," he offers, laughing.

That should have been Hui Yee's cue to laugh, because it's not even clear that Chee Boon would win a tug-of-war with anorexic teenage girls. At that moment, though, Hui Yee can't even be bothered to fake a smile. She has no idea how much Joseph knows about what went on between Chee Boon and her, or what he had worked out on his own, or what he actually cares to know.

Fortunately, Joseph's changes to his code of male conduct seem to be restricted to Du Ling. Hui Yee settles back onto the sofa as the sounds of the so-called Tempest sonata fill the lobby.

Hui Yee has always been able to tell when Joseph is playing from the fiery notes and fearless ringing sound. It's as if he were engaged in a virtuosic competition with his contemporaries, many of whom could polish off _Appassionata_ s and _Hammerklavier_ s and Rachmaninovs with less effort than it takes most people to spell those names. This time, though, instead of feeling like she's about to be blown off her feet, it's something more measured and contemplative, like watching the swirl of a tornado from the eye of the storm.

It's a reminder of how things have changed. Hui Yee will never be able to break his supposedly manly silence at the dinner table by "So, Joseph, when are you going to get a girlfriend?", and the conversation will never again leap from evolutionary fitness to 'male body language' to conditions satisfying optimal urinal placement.

She's jealous, but it's not the kind that can or wants to be assuaged by Joseph's attention. The way Hui Yee thinks of it, if she's a water molecule, then Joseph was like a Fe3+ ion, where their mutual species made possible the ion-dipole interactions which bonded their friendship. Du Ling'd been like the OH- ion, here, and now that they've found each other, it's much more favourable for them to precipitate out of the solution, to lock tight with each other within their crystal lattice.

Hui Yee almost laughs at the bizarre thought. That's what happens when the _Molecular Courtship_ prof draws an analogy between intermolecular attractions and bonding to human courtship and marriage.

Du Ling appears as Joseph transits into the coda. It's like the winds tearing away the head of the storm from the tail and the storm dissolving, everything back to its proper place and the dust settled. Hui Yee thinks back, months ago, to the time when Chee Boon had played-- well, not for her, she can't be so naïve as to think that anymore-- in her presence, the bone-piercing chill of the soundscape. Perhaps it should have been clear to her then, she thinks, watching the sleeve of Joseph's shirt straighten as he rises to meet Du Ling, that some things just weren't meant for her.

To Hui Yee's relief, the even more awkward scene of Du Ling and Joseph together is cut short by the appearance of her parents.

Du Ling slips her arm into Joseph's as they move outside earshot. "True love," shrugs Hui Yee, half to herself, half to her parents.

"Why her, and not you?" asks her father, because Hui Yee's terrible interpersonal ignorance is something he includes in his weekly prayers to Kuan Yin, now.

Why indeed, wonders Hui Yee, as she remains silent through her parents' dire projections of her single, lonely, fate. She'd long known that she's neither the kind who can appear at some posh ballet performance without tripping over her heels or some equally graceless faux pas, nor the kind who has the patience to pack her husband's luggage and to line his wallet with foreign currency, but she'd thought that she'd asked even less in return.

Now, though, the fallacy of utilizing a strictly cost-benefit analysis while neglecting a value threshold is painfully obvious; no one would pay even a cent for rubbish. That's another reason why she should have taken up Business like Du Ling, then, thinks Hui Yee.

*

Hui Yee knows the rules such stories should follow, now. That's why Joseph and Du Ling think Hui Yee first found out about them when Du Ling had sat down with her with a "there's something we want you to know". In actual fact, Hui Yee had known for at least a week. It's a memory that brings a jolt of hurt, like a knife through the wing of a bird. She’d come back late one night to find them holding hands as they'd walked close to the tembusu tree, the grid of room lights glowing against the black sky behind them.

They hadn't noticed Hui Yee, who'd ducked out of view, pressing herself close to the dim buzz of the dining hall. Hui Yee had known that her line would have to be a happy or encouraging statement, but there'd been nothing like that in her mind, only the kind of sick jealousy that comes with having her flights of fancy shot down while theirs could take wing. So Hui Yee had done the kindest thing she could: stayed out of sight and said nothing, nothing at all.

***

"Du Ling wants me to talk to you about Hui Yee," says Joseph one evening at dinner. "She's unhappy, or something. Hui Yee, I mean, although Du Ling is because Hui Yee is, come to think."

Chee Boon raises an eyebrow. "What do you want me to say?"

Joseph shrugs. "I don't know."

Somehow, Chee Boon doubts that Du Ling will find this an acceptable outcome of the conversation.

*

Du Ling is with Joseph, which means Chee Boon knows that she likes Tchaikovsky and Lang Lang, she does her shopping at Junction 8 and that Joseph most recently made the mistake of stalling when asked the classic "does this make me look fat?", much to her displeasure. In real life, though, Du Ling and Chee Boon have barely conversed beyond asking each other what USP modules they're taking this semester. This makes it strange when Du Ling comes up to him at breakfast a couple of days later, demanding to know if he’s spoken to Hui Yee recently.

"No," replies Chee Boon, because indeed there has not been much to talk about between them.

"You don't seem to be spending as much time together as you used to," continues Du Ling.

Chee Boon spears a piece of fried egg in reply. Du Ling lets out an irritated breath. Chee Boon thinks she probably has the right idea that he is mixed up in this, but is simply weighing the utility of stating this outright. She chooses to give up, apparently, since she excuses herself after a while.

This is Chee Boon's deal with girls.

He's had his fair share of conversations about girls where he listens and thinks things like, "oh, so his girlfriend thinks his voice is considered deep and manly". Mating phenomena intrigue him- he's a biologist, after all- but he's a theoretician. Experimentation is not high on his list of priorities.

Chee Boon likes Hui Yee, too, for a certain value of like. It's true that he seeks- sought- her out more than any other girl. But he'd done so not for her gender, but for the amusement that sometimes arcs between them like lightning, the kind that makes her laugh with a refreshing abandon. Somewhere along the line he had forgotten that Hui Yee was a girl, or rather, not realized that she would feel in this way. He'd honestly been blindsided by Hui Yee's so-called declaration. He knows he hadn't handled the situation in the suavest way, and he regrets the current coldness between them.

If he could work out how to make it better, he would. But he can't, so he won't.

***

At the mid-autumn festival celebrations held by Hui Yee's JC, she does her best to focus the attention on Joseph and Du Ling. Unfortunately, at least one gossip-monger had spotted her alone with Chee Boon more times than coincidence would allow. Hui Yee laughs and says that there's nothing between Chee Boon and her, which is true, now.

Hui Yee suspects they're convinced that she's a heartless bitch who cruelly spurned his advances, but at least it spares her further conversation about the topic. Yeah, Hui Yee has no emotions, the wet patches on her pillow must be from a leaking air-conditioner, that's the spirit.

Some nights, when it gets difficult to sleep, she sits on the ledge and stares out at the orange glow of the street lights, or looks at the moon and finds herself recalling Jay Chou songs. The ledge may sound like a dangerous place to be, but it’s not, unless Hui Yee squeezes herself through the window. That would be suicidal, and therefore unlikely, since Hui Yee has just established that she’s too cowardly to do anything more than think and, until very recently, type. What does it mean to raise a hand to the moon and then have it so full of memories that one can't sleep, anyway? If Hui Yee opens her hand, will the thoughts fly away, bittersweet like the winter flight of swallows to the south?

It's more likely to be a splattered mess of shit on the floor, thinks Hui Yee, because that's what she feels like.

"I don't see Chee Boon and you very much these days," says Du Ling one day.

'That might be because all you notice these days is Joseph,' Hui Yee thinks, but doesn't say, making a noncommittal sound instead.

"Is there something wrong?" Du Ling continues.

There is the overwhelming sense that Hui Yee's a failure, but she doesn't see how any conversation with Du Ling can change that.

Hui Yee spends a lot of time alone, after that.

Anyway, exams are near, and the course on Fourier series is giving her trouble. It feels, sometimes, as if Fourier is giving her trouble, when she looks at the integrals miraculously being evaluated by the Fourier transform and can't make head or tail out of them. About the only thing that might make sense is the lecturer's choice of "convolute" as the verb for convolution. It also doesn't help that the voice in her head that corrects the word to "convolve" sounds suspiciously like Chee Boon.

*

News of the suicide first breaks via Facebook. After an official request to respect the family's privacy, the speculation fades from Hui Yee's news feed. But then again, making a mystery known to people from a programme that bills itself as 'curiosity wanted' is like putting alcoholics in a wine cellar suffused with the scent of aged wine and telling them not to drink.

Hui Yee remembers reading about synchronicity, where two related things happen at the same time without any apparent cause or effect, yet appear to be connected. It strikes her that the moment she'd been thinking about the mechanics of jumping over the ledge could have been the exact moment of the suicide.

That's probably why she feels oddly guilty. She doesn't even know him, although it turns out that they were in the same year in the same JC, and their paths could have crossed many times. They have something like twenty mutual friends on Facebook.

Part of her wants to demand how his friends could have treated her junior-college-mate so badly, with all the self-righteousness of one who ostensibly has little responsibility. The other part of her knows that noticing someone's withdrawal from any group is basically hearing the bark that did not sound in the night, and none of them are Sherlock Holmes. That makes her guilty in principle, because she knows she wouldn't have done better in the same situation.

There is a funeral, which Hui Yee has nothing to do with, but she sees the black-clad students gathered at the lobby, like a flock of silent black crows.

*

The last funeral Hui Yee had attended had been her grandmother's, about ten years ago. The air had been thick with the scent of joss-sticks and the chanting of sutras.

"Why Popo's coffin so shiny?" Hui Yee had asked, the Gameboy still warm in her hand. "Purple one, somemore."

"Don't say this kind of thing," her mother had shushed her, pinning a small square of hemp to her right shoulder. Hui Yee's father hadn't heard: he'd been gazing at his mother's body, his face sombre.

Years later, when Hui Yee had both acquired the vocabulary to convey that 'electric purple, cushioned and open-air concept' made one think more of an Italian sports car than her grandmother's coffin as well as the discretion to phrase these comments appropriately, her father had explained it to her.

"At that time we didn't know how to choose a coffin properly," he'd said, referring to her uncles. Quite a few relatives had been shocked at the lack of the usual glass cover for the body.

"Your grandmother had very bad rheumatism," continued her father. "We thought 'ah, got cushions very good, very comfortable...' "

Hui Yee would honestly rather be cremated with minimal fuss. Even in life, this sort of consideration makes her uncomfortable, because it's not something she knows she can pay back. Besides, suicide is up there on the list of unfillial things one can do, which would make her even more undeserving of such thoughtfulness

*

But beyond her unforgivable lack of filial piety, Hui Yee remembers reading about the magical Palamush computer, where placing one's hand on the sensor would generate a readout detailing one's significance to the galaxy.

Hui Yee can't help but ask the same question. The only reoriented path seems to have been that of the pantang cleaning auntie with a brown prayer bead bracelet and a jade Buddha pendant. Hui Yee's already heard her talk about how she sidles past the door with the oppressive aura of death. Hui Yee wonders if any of the gathered friends are annoyed at being pulled away from their revision during reading week, or if they see it as a communal bonding experience, or if Hui Yee has practically no close friends left because she thinks of friendship in this manner.

*

Indeed, the rest of the world continues as normal. A graduate student in the lab where Hui Yee is working gets his first publication, and Hui Yee goes for the celebratory drinks session.

"I heard there was a suicide in one of the undergrad buildings," says another grad student, after a couple of rounds of beer have stripped some of their inhibitions.

"It's a sign that our prof shouldn't work us so hard," Hui Yee quips, but her heart really isn't in it. She'd sipped at the drinks and nibbled at the tidbits, unable to shake the vague guilt, the phantom sense of mourning.

"Please," a post-doc scoffs, overhearing their conversation. "There's one suicide a year at MIT."

NUS is on par with MIT, then. At least the administrators compiling metrics will be happy.

That's about all one of their deaths are worth. Hui Yee's death might, at most, earn a headline that goes, "Student commits suicide, reliable sources cite foolish young love".

Hui Yee doesn't know if she'll ever be worth more than a gossip column mention, but she knows now that humans break, more easily and irreversibly than she had previously imagined.

Tomorrow, Hui Yee will thumb through badly-taken notes in an attempt to cram the proving strategies, studiously avoid Chee Boon if she sees him in the dining hall, and commiserate with the others on how poorly their revision is going. But today, Hui Yee takes the moment to stare at the grid of rooms of the opposite building, and regret that she can only see the flare of lights, and not if their owners might feel as lost or helpless or as cut-up inside.

***

Right before the beginning of the next semester, Du Ling and Joseph head off to the US for exchange, she in New York and he in Boston. Hui Yee wishes them bon voyage, promises to stay in touch, and is very careful not to make any jokes about attached couples going on exchange and returning attached-- to other people.

She's forgiven Chee Boon, mostly. She hasn't exactly forgiven herself, but she figures that she's already being punished by the consequences, since there's no going back to how things once were.

Hui Yee then adopts the policy that serves mathematical modellers very well: if you can't deal with anything, assume it doesn't exist and proceed. Having experimentally verified that tears do nothing to improve the taste of dining hall food, she resolves to not eat alone whenever possible.

Hui Yee joins the people she knows from orientation, once. She sits at the edge of the group, watching as possession of the conversation passes from person to person, as seamless as ball tosses. Hui Yee feels that she may as well be at the foot of the table, head cocked sideways, and wagging her tail beseechingly.

Hui Yee can practically smell the pity when her neighbour asks how her modules are going. She knows he's throwing him a bone, and replies politely enough, and he re-joins the conversation after the mutual trade of niceties. For the rest of the time there, she spoons food into her mouth while tracking the red digits of the clock on the far wall.

Once bitten, twice shy, they say, and Hui Yee avoids their table henceforth. But what the hell, Hui Yee's well trained. She can sit when she's supposed to and fetch drinks and can do the equivalent of wagging her tail at the right moments. And she does, sharing a table and titbits of information with module classmates or neighbours.

And if Du Ling has left Hui Yee, she's made Hui Yee a parting gift of her friends, in a sense. The PRCs probably see Hui Yee as Du Ling's tagalong friend, but Hui Yee just plants herself on her haunches next to them.

Hui Yee's not some bicultural elite or China lover or whatever. She knows where she stands with them. When a PRC tells her that "we greatly respect overseas Chinese, especially those from South-East Asia," citing their support of China during the Sino-Japanese conflict, Hui Yee has flashbacks to a PRC tour guide fed up with Singaporeans rehashing stories of the days when they had to substitute toilet doors with umbrellas.

“China has stood up!” Hui Yee remembers the guide proclaiming.

There are those moments of forced politeness, the unfamiliarity when it takes a moment for _xuexi_ to translate into _dushu_ or _kongtiao_ into _lengqi_ in Hui Yee's mind, but she doesn't feel as lonely as she did at that other table, with the people her orientation group leader had told her were her friends.

Hui Yee's learnt all the wrong things from her Chinese lessons. Her sentence structures never hide the fact that the thought was mostly formulated in English, and she opportunistically sprinkles memorized aphorisms whenever the situation seems vaguely appropriate. The kind of praise Hui Yee gets from her PRC friends is the kind she expects to hear them giving to Caucasians. Hui Yee's Chinese teacher would be turning in her grave if she weren't still alive.

Hui Yee takes a perverse pleasure in persisting. Hui Yee's secondary school prided itself on its “bilingual, bicultural” environment with traditional values, and she takes pleasure in showing just how far the ideals have fallen. Then again, not everyone has to be a banana or a hard-core honorary PRC. Chinese is not Hui Yee's tongue, no matter what the model essays say about it being her mother tongue and therefore her roots, but it doesn't mean it can't affect her. There's a trick to it, a mental tilt of her head that lets the conversation arc in and out of her in one language while it's processed in another.

It's how Hui Yee used to ruminate about Jay Chou songs, she realizes, and a snatch of melody from her old playlist flashes across her mind, the one about orcs seeking the chant to return themselves to humanity. One song leads to another, as Hui Yee clicks from link to link.  _Han Ya Xi Shui_ is still the piece where repressed courtiers supposedly found solace in the adorable antics of jackdaws paddling in the water, but it feels more invigorating now, the jackdaws full of vitality even in the face of the surging river.

Hui Yee expects disappointment when she comes across a song title about how “both Heaven and Earth are within my heart”. Yet there's something in the faraway cry of the heralding horn across the vast plains of the grassland and the image of the warrior on his horse, his bowstring drawn taut. The rising vibrato seems to resonate within Hui Yee, as if she's amidst the roar of the desert winds, bending but not succumbing.

*

Maybe it's the music that sustains Hui Yee, she thinks. Hui Yee hoards the rewards-- the interesting nuggets of conversation-- with she proudly displays to Du Ling via Skype.

"Never had I ever I heard a conversation that began with ' _ni de xiong bu hao da_ '," says Hui Yee, incredulous at how boob size could have made it into the conversation, together with a visual demonstration of the wonders of push-up bras.

"So did you take any of the advice?" Du Ling says, winking. "Should I buy you a bikini?"

"Mainly I learnt how to use ' _wu jie cao_ ' and ' _ren jian bu chai_ ' ", laughs Hui Yee. The first phrase came from the others at the table, slightly disturbed at the indignity of the conversation. The other was contributed by those who began that conversation, along with a visual demonstration of the principle that one can't 'create something out of nothing'. "Save the bikini for Joseph."

Some say a girlfriend is like taking a six credit module. Joseph's definitely applying the same market-spoiling strategy. Taking a eight hour bus ride just to be with Du Ling on her birthday, her favorite cupcakes at some well-hidden hole-in-the-wall, not to mention some of the most stunning vantage points of the city-- Hui Yee wouldn't be surprised if puppies and unicorns and rainbows appeared in front of them.

“Just these few places,” Du Ling doesn't go into elaborate detail, but Hui Yee knows that Du Ling secretly goes for romantic gestures of this sort.

Hui Yee used to be jealous of Du Ling. Not for having Joseph, exactly, but having a happiness that she doesn't. However, things changed somewhere between watching the hundredth rejection on reality TV and the blur of people she met in real life. It still hurts to think about Chee Boon, but at least objectively she's accepted that there are plenty of fish out there in the sea and plenty of trees in the forest, that kind of thing. 

While there's still a stab of dissatisfaction, the reason feels different this time. It's the idea that Du Ling's got her life together, that she's better than Hui Yee, somehow, because Hui Yee mostly feels that she's been running around, chasing her tail.

*

A dog needs structure, after all. That's why dogs grow attached to their kennel, the solid boundaries of safety. But one night, the combination of alcohol and rowdy partiers vs. irritated thesis writers leads to the stories of drunken banging on the doors and slurring about 'chinks', and Hui Yee thinks of dogs huddling in a corner as huskies circle their home, growling at them.

Then comes what the media terms 'cyberbullying', and Hui Yee wants to put a tail over her nose and hide until it's all over. She's only been an ambassador in name for a while, and now, she wants no part of representing USP at all.

But Dr Wong, the researcher she's trying to negotiate an internship with, brings it up, and Hui Yee has no choice.

It began with an article written by a USP student critical about the barrier to entry posed by the cost of living in the new University Town campus. That, in and of itself, had not surprised Hui Yee. Neither is the hundred-comment-long discussion thread that had followed on the USP forum, complete with five hundred word long displays of vocabulary, irony, and profanity.

"It's just the way some USP people behave online," Hui Yee tries to explain, lamely. "They seem harsh, but it's not the bullying the papers make it out to be. It's just the way a bunch of highly opinionated people get when you throw them together."

What bothers Hui Yee is the way it'd escalated from pseudo-privacy to public statements by some USP students to media coverage. She'd assumed that it'd been posturing, and that the idea of 'pack' would keep them from turning tooth and claw upon each other.

Dr Wong watches her, impassive, and she's sure she's not doing a good job at saying what she means. Hui Yee finds that unfortunate, because she really wants to leave a good impression: not just because of the internship, but because she genuinely likes Dr Wong. He reminds her of an eagle coolly surveying the landscape from its vantage point, and when he speaks, he's briskly honest but never condescending.

"This leaves a really bad impression of USP students on you, doesn't it?" says Hui Yee wryly.

"People have short memories," Dr Wong smiles, as if amused by the naiveté of youth.

"It doesn't reflect well, all the same." says Hui Yee, sounding slightly bitter. "I don't agree with how those students dealt with it." It's not fashionable to feel like her dirty laundry has been aired in public, but if she were fashionable, she wouldn't be sitting here feeling like she's nosing at the ground, not daring to meet the eyes of others.

"You shouldn't worry about that," Dr Wong says, and Hui Yee's ears prick at that, at what seems like the sound of the wind changing. "The main point of this programme is to allow people like you to learn from your fellow coursemates, is it not?"

Yes, yes, the value of having different perspectives in a group united by their passion for knowledge. Hui Yee can probably recite the standard spiel backwards by now. Yet it's a reminder, like the call of the trumpet. The enthusiasm Hui Yee once felt flickers to life, like the rise of a gale. Hui Yee doesn't think it's physiologically possible for her heart to truly encompass heaven and earth, but perhaps there's more space than Hui Yee had imagined.

*

Open house rolls by again. Hui Yee helps out, partially because she's too lazy to get her name taken off the list, or perhaps because, in some way, she's still the sucker she was a year ago.

It's laziness, decides Hui Yee, and in delightful consistency with this hypothesis, does not bother to indicate a preferred role. She ends up leading a tour this time round. Retracing the steps of familiar territory is part and parcel of a dog's life, anyway.

There's a junior in a school t-shirt, clutching a tote bag full of informational materials to her chest. "I was from the same house, back in JC," Hui Yee tells her, conversationally.

Confusion flickers across her face for a second before she follows Hui Yee's gaze to her t-shirt, and brightens. "Talk about signalling," she says, and Hui Yee decides to like her.

The junior follows closest at Hui Yee's heels as she guides the group through the throng of people. Hui Yee catches glimpses of the girl—or so Hui Yee thinks of her, even if she's not really that much older-- and her furrowed brow. Hui Yee knows the expression well, like there's something bothering her but she doesn't know how to say it, and the sight of it triggers a flare in Hui Yee's chest.

Some people gather around Hui Yee after the tour. “Is it very competitive in USP?” someone asks.

Perhaps at the height of her jealousy towards Du Ling, Hui Yee would have ranted about the bell-curve and market-spoiling foreigners, but now it seems about as productive as railing against death or taxes.

Du Ling and Hui Yee are who they are, and they have what they have. But Hui Yee has a choice to be who she wants to Du Ling, or anyone else.

"So are you going to apply?" Hui Yee asks the girl, who'd been listening quietly but intently to Hui Yee's previous explanations.

"It sounds like the humanities programme in JC," she says. The programme she cites annoys Hui Yee for letting its students be above the law, to skip plebeian nuisances like assembly and physical education if they so desire. If one is sufficiently biased, one can argue that these are first steps consistent with their through-train to Oxbridge on a PSC scholarship, from which they proceed to rule over the populace with disdain on their elite uncaring faces.

Hui Yee's reflexive reaction is to deny it, but the words stop at the tip of her tongue. The triggered sensations flash past Hui Yee's mind: of being deemed to have insufficient value to warrant a sustained interaction, the realization that even her death would have no value, of being like a dog at the foot of a table. Hui Yee remembers the urge to hide under her blankets, to put her tail over her nose and never ever leave the warm sanctuary.

And yet, Hui Yee is here.

"Not everyone is like that," says Hui Yee. For every time Hui Yee's felt crushing impotence, there'd been a time when she would wag a tail if she had one. Hui Yee tells her about the ridiculously geeky conversation on packing of dimethicone molecules with a classmate that had just presented on cosmetics.

“Not to forget the one about conditions on the number of urinals in a washroom to ensure optimal spacing,” concludes Hui Yee. She can't guarantee that there'll be such moments for this girl, but she would like to.

At the end of the day, Hui Yee walks across the town green, looks up at the CREATE building. It's where she had that conversation with Dr Wong, where Hui Yee'd felt the phantom surge and swirl of opposing winds between the vastness of Heaven and Earth. Sometimes, Hui Yee feels whatever she has in place of a soul soar with moments of carefree abandon; other times, she wants to crouch close to the ground and bare her teeth in a snarl. Hui Yee hasn't conquered these forces, but maybe she doesn't have to. After all, Hui Yee is more than bird and more than dog, can both give bite to the arrow and let the bow give wing to her desire to protect what she'd like others to have. 

The realization's much smaller than the universe. But, in this moment, it's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I had the privilege of being mentored by Dan Koh under the 2013 Singapore Creative Writing Residency Programme co-funded by The Arts House and USP. Dan alternately challenged, encouraged, and inspired me to develop my the highly opaque initial drafts into its present form, for which I am very grateful. To get an idea of how far this piece has come, compare it to [Mirror Mirror](https://archiveofourown.org/works/847305).
> 
> My thanks also go to Dong Lu, Siang Lin, Alistair, Ben Ho and Jolene, for their contributions to the clarity of this piece. 
> 
> Last but not least, the source of my inspiration: all the people I have had the opportunity to learn from in USP and NUS. Thank you for the four years of learning.


End file.
